Rolling Stones: Classic or Dud

I watched the video for "Emotional Rescue" the other night (and the Stones don't get enough credit for having a huge backlog of proto-music videos, going back to like Goats Head Soup or It's Only Rock 'n' Roll) and Jagger should have used that falsetto voice more.

and the Stones don't get enough credit for having a huge backlog of proto-music videos, going back to like Goats Head Soup or It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

This is pretty damn true. And Watts knew how to look in each of them perfectly.

They go back even further! Peter Whitehead directed clips on them as far back as 1966.

Here's the "We Love You" vid from '67

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfmVfBnpvOg

Better Version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7kU1KZZyqc

the closer "love is strong" gets to "wicked as it seems" the better it gets. demo is fire and much better than the final release, tho the bridge is still a problem.

no band has ever sounded that evil

the whole was really better than the sum of its parts with the stones. they had some alchemical quality. evil is as good a word as any, meant in the best sense.

They were hurt by CD bloat but also a little by the peak CD-era production...Every album from Steel Wheels on features a few songs so good if the entire album were like them it would be their best since pick your album.

It's been tough getting through all of them, partly because so many of them run well over an hour and there isn't anything close to an hour's worth of worthy material.

I'm tempted to say Voodoo Lounge is the only one that had a real album's worth of listenable material. It's not the best music from this era - for starters, nothing's as good as the highlights on A Bigger Bang - but there's at least 40 minutes of stuff that feel pretty sturdy. After one pass, I chopped it down to 45:43 over 11 tracks (one of which is apparently a B-side, not an original album track):

1. Love Is Strong
2. You Got Me Rocking
3. Sparks Will Fly
4. The Worst
5. New Faces
6. Out of Tears
7. Jump on Top of Me
8. Brand New Car
9. Sweethearts Together
10. Blinded by Rainbows
11. Thru and Thru

Rescreened Gimme Shelter. An experience, as always. Forgot how much Charlie there was in the opening editing suite sequence. Something I hadn't noticed before: at the end of "Satisfaction" at MSG, there's a couple of crowd shots from the stage and there's somebody out in the middle of floor holding up a crutch as high as one can in such a situation: hand around the footie, arm totally raised waving it around.

Something I've noticed frequently--and never fails to kill me--is how at one of the tensest moments on-stage at Altamont, a dog casually strolls across the stage in front of Jagger.

there's a couple of crowd shots from the stage

johnny thunders in there too apparently.

https://iorr.org/talk/read.php?1,2338235

That's great. Wondering if it is as great as this

haha off topic but i once sat in the row in front of handsome dick at iggy's big comeback show at the palladium (the idiot). everyone was on their feet the whole show except handsome dick, who was slouched in his seat pretending to be asleep. at the end of the show he walked out with his hands raised over his head like a boxer proclaiming "I AM THE NEW IGGY POP!!!"

Ha!

Scarface gets it

Revisiting The Rolling Stones catalog and WOW!!! hit after fuckin hit 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾

— SCARFACE (@BrotherMob) September 2, 2021

Even conceding that "Black & Blue" is not really the band at its best, the off-kilter, randomly-rhythmic cover of "Cherry Oh Baby" sounds like they gave it two takes, max, neither with any clear understanding or grasp of - or even interest in - reggae. I can totally imagine how it went down.

Mick: "Keef. Keef! Wake up!"
Keef: ...
(Mick kicks the sofa)
Mick: "Get. Up!"
Keef: "Blrrreegghhgh."
Mick: "Whu?"
Keef: "I said I'm up!"
(looks around)
Keef: "Where are we?"
Mick: "We're in the studio, Keef. We're making an album."
Keef: "What, another one?"
Mick: "Yes, Keef, another one."
Keef: "Well, is it done yet?"
Mick: "No, Keef, it is not done yet, so get up."
(Keef stands and runs his hands through his hair)
Keef: "How long was I out?"
Mick: "I dunno, one, two ... ?
Keef: "Hours?"
Mick: "No, Keef, days. You were out one or two days, mate."
(Keef chuckles)
Keef: "Yeah, I'm a real stinker, I am. What do you need me for?"
Mick: "We've got a few more songs to finish. We've got "Hey Negrita," we've got "Fool to Cry," we've got ..."
Keef: "Let's do 'Cherry Oh Baby.'"
Mick: "'Cherry Oh Baby'"? What's that? That a new song you got?"
Keef: “Nah, no, it's this old reggae track."
(Mick furrows his brow)
Mick: "Reggae? Like 'I Shot the Sheriff"? Clapton?"
Keef: “No, no, this is the good reggae shit. The real shit."
(Keef takes a drag from his cigarette)
Mick: “When did you even light that?”
Keef: “I get me roadies to keep one going by my side so I have it when I need it.”
Mick: “Of course you do. Now get up and let’s record, what was that, ‘Cheerio, Baby’? How does it go?”
Keef: “Oh, it’s pretty easy stuff. Just put the accent on the third beat.”
Charlie and Bill (together): “Huh?”
Keef: “Just follow my lead, easy-peasy.”
Mick: “Well, it better be, we only have the studio booked for another 5 minutes today!”
Keef (cackling): “Perfect.”

Lol that’s perfect

LMAO

I actually like Black and Blue and think it's very good, but I kind of wished they ditched both that cover and "Melody" and finished "Slave" and "Worried About You" instead. Kind of, but Tattoo You would have taken a hit and Sonny Rollins's later overdub may be the best thing about "Slave."

Fully agree. I love the thick heady SOUND of B&B.

I guess they just kicked off their tour in St. Louis? I saw a couple of clips, and the problem with Steve Jordan (who is a great drummer) is that ... he is a great drummer. It's weird to hear the band with metronomic time.

yeah, a couple of my friends went to that show. i don't trust their opinion on any music though so :-o

The Stones are the first band that made me realize the full extent of fan logic. I reviewed a show of theirs some years back, and they were not that great that particular night. Just nothing special. And someone sent me a letter that more or less asked "if the Stones are not the best band in the world, then why have I seen over 50 shows on this tour!?"

I don't know, dude. I don't know. Tax write off?

did the fan think they were exactly as good each of the 50 shows?

also...50 shows...$100 minimum for each...travel, hotels...

i'm starting to think this fan is a gigantic asshole who should give their money to people who need it

give me the email of this fan, i want to talk (jk)

"hey fan, this is Zach T...uh, Keith Richards. of the rolling stones."

"This is Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stone. Thank you for buying me a car."

LMAO. I get why you'd go back - maybe not 50 times, but I actually get the appeal of aging with a group that you've known since your youth - but it reminds me of a Jim DeRogatis rant from about 2005 when the Sun-Times asked him to write something on the Stones and he wanted to do something on the White Stripes. Imagine it's 1969 and you say to your editor, "Hey, the Stones are coming into town - can I go cover it?" "The Stones??? No, JOHNNY MATHIS is playing tonight! You're covering Johnny Mathis!" How things come around...

I mean, I’d rather see the Stones in 2005 than the Stripes… but to each DeRo his own!

I love the Stones, but in 2005? Unless it was going to be my only chance to ever see the Stones, I'd take the White Stripes without hesitation.

(To be clear, 2005 was a good year for the Stones, probably their best this century.)

for nearly 40 years, they've been the greatest rolling stones cover band in the world

as I write, MJ is wrapping up a 50 minute interview with Howard Stern in which very little of consequence was discussed… if it was me, I would have asked him if he is aware that he refers to his own band as "they": "the thing about the Stones is that they are not just an R&B band, they do elizabethan or english folk tunes as well…"

I wonder how someone like Mick Jagger, or any other rock star, feels about having been in this business for over 50 years and still having to do bullshit press and publicity.

seeing the stones 50 times over 50 years is cool. seeing the stones 50 times on the same tour is a disturbing form of self-harm.

I wonder how someone like Mick Jagger, or any other rock star, feels about having been in this business for over 50 years and still having to do bullshit press and publicity.

I think someone like Jagger or Paul McCartney is more okay with it just because they have that lifelong business professional side to them. I thought this was kind of refreshing when he was promoting the super deluxe reissue of Goats Head Soup last year and someone mentioned how he praised the album over Exile when it first came out:

"I say stupid things like that when I’m promoting albums. You've got to take that with a pinch of salt. 'Course it’s better! This album, if you liked Exile, this is even better!' I can imagine myself saying that."

my guess is that they wouldn't be the rolling stones or the beatles without having at least someone who was savvy with PR, whether it was a manager in the 60s when they were still kids or john lennon accidentally doing a good PR stunts like comparing them to jesus off-hand. they're still here 50 years from now because of the bullshit press and publicity, so i expect he feels ok about it

I mean, I’d rather see the Stones in 2005 than the Stripes… but to each DeRo his own!

I saw the Stripes a bunch over the years and I don't think they were ever better than that Get Behind Me Satan era

I wonder how someone like Mick Jagger, or any other rock star, feels about having been in this business for over 50 years and still having to do bullshit press and publicity.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday,

I still relish reading Jagger interviews because there's almost always a moment when his courteous contempt for the interlocutor, his studious detachment, and a rock singer's tendency to sell things results in unexpected answers.

The Goats Head Soup promo interviews were good because he actually remembered these obscure album tracks and offered a few insights.

@Josh in Chicago more Mick n Keef fanfic please

lol

Out and about last night in Charlotte, NC pic.twitter.com/BWssvivAII

— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) September 30, 2021

All those people on the left, I wonder who *they* are looking at. "OMG, it's David Spade!!!!"

I kinda feel like Jagger can pass unnoticed in society pretty easily just because a) your average person would never expect to see Mick Jagger walking down the street and b) he's shorter than many people realize (he claims 5'10" but I'd bet he's no more than 5'8"), so he's just some skinny old man. Throw a hat on him and he's totally anonymous.

your average person would never expect to see Mick Jagger walking down the street

Maybe not, but it's pretty easy to tell who it is just by his walk:

https://c.tenor.com/U-MmqbfiJPkAAAAd/jagger-mick.gif

Both Bowie and Jagger (and Madonna) have said in interviews it's quite easy to turn the star power off, as it were, and walk down the street, go to the cinema, and do normal things without being noticed.

I'm definitely not sure I'd recognize Madonna these days if I just, like, saw her at Target.

I can easily imagine Jagger walking masked into a dark bar, ordering his beer, and walking outside without being noticed.

I saw Bowie and and about in NYC a few times (once on an electric scooter!) and he definitely was not unnoticed, but certainly unbothered.

"out and about" in NYC

xp I would think that uber-celebrities have done things in public during the pandemic they normally only dream about, what with the masking.

You also have to consider the possibility that “normal” people often realize that the cool thing to do if you’re at a bar with mick jagger is just let him be himself and don’t talk to him